Snyders and Castillo de San Marcos - 2/25

 

We had a lovely morning with the Snyders! Finally, after we were sick and they were sick, we were able to get together - and none to soon as we were headed out of Orlando today!

After an all-you-can-eat breakfast, we headed to Saint Augustine - America's Oldest City!

Founded in 1565 by Spanish settlers, this city is older than our country!

Castillo de San Marcos protected Saint Augustine. 

The oldest masonry fort in the U.S., here on Matanzas Bay, held TONS of people and fun. St Augustine on a Saturday in snowbird season - super busy and challenging to find RV parking! Scott was the hero and dropped us off at the fort to go find parking a half-mile away. (:

The living history characters were great!

The youngest was Jo's age and had the privilege of helping fire the cannon at demonstration time.

All the kids signed on to serve in the Spanish army.

We finished up the day exploring the city and enjoying all the historical markers

and their park really cool park playground.

Jesus Film Project - 2/24

 

Many days ago, when we visited Wycliffe, we picked up a brochure about this place. The Jesus Film was released in 1979 and has been used to share the gospel with millions. In fact, when I went to Morocco in 1997, we used the Jesus Film on our trip.

This picture next to Ky (above) shows people seeing/understanding the gospel for the first time. They also had an amazing video of a crowd of thousands in Africa seeing Jesus "speak their language" as they watched the film dubbed in their own tongue. The reaction was incredible. This film is an amazing tool for sharing the gospel.

We saw how they used to show it, on 4 huge rolls of film, and how they can show it now - on a projector the size of my palm with the film dubbed in 10 different languages on one small sd card!

 

There are over a thousand lights on this board (Jo counted them!) that show places where the Jesus Film has been shown in a people's heart language.

The project is run out of the CRU headquarters (Campus Crusade).

And, of course, being in Florida, there is still tons of wildlife everywhere. Even alligators in the pond right outside the door.

As part of the tour, one guest was selected to demonstrate how the dubbing is done. Kik was given a script and a practice run, then they recorded his voice and dubbed it into the movie. He played Peter talking to Jesus.

Afterwards, we got to watch how well he did. They also gave us a dvd of his work as a souvenir. (:

Sick again!

Yep! That's the surprise. We all got sick... AGAIN! Boo. ):

We woke up Sunday and both Sy and Scott had high fevers and more of us were not feeling so hot, so we watched the launch on tv. Such a bummer.

Suzy said we should stay til we were well enough to move on. Little did any of us know that would be over a week! While I ended up in bed (did not move) for 2 days myself, Suzy kept everyone fed and as happy as can be expected when surrounded by sickies. We are so thankful that the Lord provided this place for us to heal.

 Our recovery was aided by watching this awesome set of movies that a man from our church made in the 80s. Miss Bough had the DVD and the kids got to see their grandpa in the movie, so that was fun.

Thanks to Netflix, the kids were also introduced to MacGyver (classic) and watched quite a few episodes between getting lots of sleep and fluids.

During the week, Miss Bough and I enjoyed catching up and reminiscing - going through photo albums and memories.

Eventually - the next Saturday, we were all healthy enough to head out. But by then, Suzy was sick!

We felt so bad for sharing our sickness. ):

 

Surprise at Suzy's

This is happy Sy. He was happy because we had just arrived at a friend's house and she had a large tree in her front yard.

Kik was happy, too. He was happy because our friend had 3 fun dogs to play with.

I was happy because we were getting to hang out with my friend - and my former 4th grade teacher, Miss Bough. (That was her first year of teaching and it was the year my mom died - quite memorable for both of us.)
We planned to stay for 2 days but, (spoiler alert), we stayed for 8! (That's the surprise part I'll get to in the next post.)
Friday night, she treated us to dinner at a yummy Mexican restaurant. And the portions were so big, we had lunch the next day too!
Saturday morning we drove out to Cape Canaveral to watch a rocket launch - a once in a lifetime opportunity!

 We (and a bajillion other people) parked across the water from the launch site and prepared to be amazed.

BUT...

We were so disappointed when 13 seconds before the launch, they called it off. Thankfully, it was rescheduled for the next day and we were staying less than an hour away, so we could come back!Since we were already out and about, we enjoyed the nearby wetlands at Merritt Island and a few minutes at the beach at Canaveral Seashore before heading home.

 The kids have learned to identify so many new birds on this trip, primarily as a result of Junior Ranger programs at various parks that challenge them to find specific birds that are prevalent in each park.

 So beautiful!

 And playing at the seashore...

Wycliffe Discovery Center - 2/17

Wycliffe Bible Translators is headquartered in Orlando, Florida. They have an interactive display (kind of like a science center for linguistics) that is open to the public.

 We had a blast learning about how Wycliffe has translated the Bible into over 1400 languages.

 We had the opportunity to hear a Bible passage in several different languages.

 Dressing up got us in the mood for further exploration.

 There were so many interactive exhibits for the kids.

And places for them to imagine exploring and finding unreached people groups.

Our friends, the Snyders, worked for Wycliffe for many years here in Orlando. When Scott was young, they lived on the same street as his family in Corvallis, Oregon. They invited us to this place and we are so grateful they did!

We explored creating a written language for those languages that have only been oral.

This exhibit explores the 26 ways to say "carry" in the language of a native tribe in Mexico. That is where all this translation work began over 75 years ago when Cameron Townsend learned that the Spanish Bibles he was trying to distribute in Mexico were not actually in the language of many of the people. Many years ago, we read a missionary biography about "Uncle Cam" and this little field trip was a real treat. We were already familiar with WHAT Wycliffe does and WHY, but this helped us delve into HOW.

More Mickey - Feb12-16

 Can you get too much Mickey?

breakfast of Disney fans
some character my kids wanted to wait in line to meet - ?

We got to watch the manatees be fed. So intriguing!

 

 Mama and baby ducks enjoying Epcot with us.

 I could not get enough pictures of the interesting gardening methods!

 Lettuce above, bell peppers below, (and so many more that will stay in my camera!)

 The boys ate in Japan, Scott in England, and the girls at the Lotus Blossom in China!

 

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 I was so excited to see Fantasmic because I have never seen it before.